Pascu and Francis had not exchanged a word since they left the train and walked towards the parking lot. There was a distinct lack of relativity between them; as if they had no common grounds like, similar language or culture, which often initiates a breezy conversation; starting with any innocuous subject like weather or an inquiry about one's health or the current journey. The warmth and affection both brothers had displayed towards each other in Rio had all but vanished and the primary reason for that was Francis' internal struggle with the demons he was unable to slay.

With all the indoctrination in the RC faith, its associated training and his own research in the subject of divinity, he could not come up with any definition of his own status; one that would be at the least, be acceptable to the crowd he was scheduled to meet, without him betraying the truth that he and Eduardo alone shared with the Almighty God. What am I going to be this evening? A Father Francis Mendez, simply Francis-brother of Pascal or something not yet defined? That paralyzing numbness once had overcome his soul in the little town in New Mexico from where he had dashed out of his Church into the wilderness, seem to have returned. Then he had a free hand to bolt out of the door without a second thought but now, that option was not even plausible, leave aside any possibility of repeating the event. He was sitting in his brother's car and heading into the eye of his own, private and self-created emotional tornado.

Pascu eased into the horrendous city traffic easily and headed towards the highway leading to the suburb. Pascu, Rosetta Mendez lived with their two children in Guarulhos which was a good one hour trip from the Sau Paulo city. As they approached the highway, Pascu was getting relaxed as the traffic was thinning out and driving had begun to be less intense. When he turned his face to see if he could guess what could be the matter troubling his kid brother, he found Francis still preoccupied with his battle of conscience. As a practicing Psychiatrist, Pascu recognized the syndromes and refrained from addressing him. However, he was observing him with occasional glances and from the corner of his eye. He realized that Francis was physically sitting next to him but was far away from the reality; lost in some other world that needed to be discovered.
By the time he rolled down onto the exit ramp and came to a red traffic light, it was necessary to bring him back into his car as their villa was just round the corner and Pascu's family was waiting there to receive their honorable relative. Gently he called his brother's name and reached for his limp arm clutching the edge of his seat.

" Francis; we are approaching home; you have not uttered a word since you stepped outside from the railcar. What is bothering you; can you share with me? Rosetta and Children are awaiting your arrival eagerly and they will be disappointed if you remain in the same state of mind when we reach home."
With the touch and the speech Francis' mind stirred and that began the thawing process' A weak smile slowly appeared on his face. In a low voice he asked in Portuguese,
" " Quo longe estamos da sua casa?"
"Just in ten minutes we will be home" Pascu responded in English.

"Pode irs compras em algum lugar? Eu no trouxe nenhum presente para minha irmem lei ou as crianas."

Perhaps Francis was not completely out of his private storm yet and was still talking in the language he was communicating with the Brazilian officials in his head during that trip.
Pascu persistently replied in English to try and break, what he thought could be a borderline schizophrenic symptoms his brother was displaying.
"You don't need to go to shopping now, your sister in law and children are not expecting anything beyond your prayers and blessings; so don't worry about going to shopping center now; we will be late for the supper."
" Oh I see; you are right, maybe I will take them out tomorrow and then, I wouldn't know what to buy in the first place." Then he laughed heartily as if it was some sort of humorous statement he made.

Pascu was relieved but as a clinician he had recognized that his brother was in need of a complete evaluation, physical as well as psychic; there was a possibility that he had inherited some sort of disorder from his Portuguese father. Francis was his stepbrother as his mother had confessed at her death bed that all three children she bore were from two different men and that, long before her first wedding, she had made promised to herself that no seeds of any low, uneducated riffraff were going to fertilize her noble eggs and the sailor man she had married was just that; so she cheated on him systematically. She planned each of her pregnancy on a schedule that coincided with her husband's arrival. When he arrived, she had managed to get the mouth of her uterus firmly shut with a child shaping up in her womb and then she breast fed the kids until he left, just to prevent any accidental pregnancy.
Francis was the son of the man she married after her marriage to the Sailor was annulled and the first three; Pascu, Emanuel and their sister Alice, were children of a man of collar who visited them regularly. When this knowledge was imparted to him, Pascal was already doing his internship in Psychiatric Medicine in Lisbon, Emanuel was an Engineer in Mumbai, married to a local gal and worked for the Shipping Corporation of India. Alice, his sister was married to an Englishman. She, with her two children was well settled in England. He saw no point in getting upset about it and had shrugged the whole thing off his shoulders. After all Frankie Mendez the sailor man was never a fatherly character to them and they had learned to tolerate and loath him just because their mother had raised them to believe that they were all destined to be important individuals and he was nothing but nuisance and a drag to their progress in life. It all worked out perfectly as she had planned her life and after the confession, she died with a smile on her face and with a peaceful heart. Morality, can be made out of any act described in any religious book as immoral; he had then concluded. It is the end results that must be moral in a practical way and also be useful to the society; life often demands that. Instead of having raggedy and riffraff children running after the hogs in Goan streets and gullies, the ambitious mother chose a path that was easy to walk on and offered lots of means all along the journey, available to raise a set of superior humans. Is there anything wrong? He questioned himself. Did he also not marry Rosetta because of her estate and powerful family connections, and the best chance of raising good, healthy children, instead of that notion of love and romance?
He did not judge his mother harshly nor questioned the morality of his father who was also an ordained priest. Survival of the fittest is dependent on having excellent genes being distributed and received; that is the way nature has set the equation for perpetuating the species. He didn't feel any need for him to discuss this secret with Francis; at least not now he thought and pulled the car in his garage.

When they entered the living room, Rosetta came forward and welcomed him with a big smile on her face and genuine affection in her eyes. She was an attractive woman with whitish complexion, dark hair and delicate face; rather on a plus size as women tend to be in that part of the world after two child births. He gave her a slight hug and a kisses on both the cheeks.
"You are so handsome Francis, much more than you look in high school photo; I am so glad to meet you. Now I met everyone in the Pascal's family".

With that introduction, Francis forgot his troubles and came around to his usual gregarious nature. Getting accepted with so much warmth must have triggered a positive emotional reaction and for the time being, all his negative thoughts disappeared somewhere inside his mind's vault that no one else had tried to open before.
Soon two youngsters, twelve year old Mark and ten year old Silvia came forward and were introduced to him. He became chatting with them instantly as he would have done after the Mass or before the Sunday school. They too were drawn to him because of his relaxed and friendly appearance so much different than their Parish priest who constantly admonished them or was always in an official moods.

They knew he was a Father in a faraway place in the jungles of Brazil and wanted to know all about his adventures there as if he was the 'Tarzan of the Apes'. Pascu was observing his brother and making mental notes of the swing of his moods. It was getting late and they had to eat the special dinner and Rosetta stepped in and announced:
"Come on children, you have school tomorrow, it is eight o'clock; eat your supper and off you go to your rooms. Uncle Francis is going to be with us for a long time and you will get him for as long as you want this weekend."
Then she held Francis' hand and led him to the guest room and said:
"Don't be late and come for the cocktail as soon as you are freshened up."

He nodded his head and entered the room. In half an hour he came out with a fresh face and changed cloths. Children were finishing their supper and she was busy with them. He moved into living room and began inspecting the photographs neatly mounted on the walls and in the frames placed on a grand piano. Most of them were family and children's events caught on a digital camera, probably by Pascu, as he was missing in the pictures. As he moved on from one wall to another, he came upon a black and white photograph of his mother standing next to a Portuguese man sporting a well groom beard and handlebar mustache, holding a hat with ostrich feathers and good number of ribbons and medals pinned on his tunic. He recognized him at once. He was one of the senior officials of the colonial administration of Goa who used to come to their home on certain days. She was dressed in a bridle suit and in spite of her middle age, looked ravishingly beautiful and radiant in that photograph. Francis had no idea his mother was married to anyone else but to one who thought was his father, Frankie, who was always at sea. Staring at it, he was trying to figure out in his mind the time frame when that photo might have been taken.
At the same moment, Pascu had come into the living room with two glasses and a bottle of Scotch. He saw the puzzled look on his brother's face and said:
"She got married two years after you left Rome and we lost the contact. Dad had died when a Panamanian registered vessel he was on, sunk in a storm in the South pacific sometime after he left Goa; we found it out after almost one year, I think it was in nineteen sixty nine. You may remember the man she married-he was one of the Senior Civil Servants during the Portuguese Administration; he used to visit our place many times; a friend of Father DeMelo."
" Yes I do remember him; did she move to Lisbon with him?" Francis asked.
"Not right away, but soon after the property rights and other business were completed they moved. I was already there in the University doing my Medical education that time. Let's have a drink before we sit for a dinner; Rosetta goes to work early, she works for the Portuguese Consulate office in Sau Paulo. I will be free after twelve tomorrow. We can go out for lunch and then we will do the catching up with the lost times of our life. We will have all the time we want until children come home by four PM."
The evening passed without anything specifically happening and three chatted about their Goa days, Rosetta was curious about that life and their youth but then how much one can tell to anyone about one's life that was not shared? Soon she got bored and excused herself to retire.
When they were alone, Pascu delicately and tactfully brought the conversation back to Francis' childhood and suddenly, Francis raised the question of why and how he was groomed to be a man of faith during his late adolescent years when not many efforts were ever made, to get Pascu or Emanuel even to attend the Sunday school regularly. "Mother was not so keen on anything else except our education and milking the last Rupee out of her clients and labor alike; then why I was chosen to become a Priest? Do you have any idea; you always used to hang around Father DeMelo and mother when they were in conference; you ought to know, I assume!"
Pascu laughed and spoke:
" I can't believe you were that observant to notice what I was doing. Well, before I answer your question truthfully, I want you to promise me that you won't take an offense to what I am going to tell you brother. Is that a deal?"
Francis nodded his head in agreement and Pascu began:

" If you recall, during that period of your life, you were learning the Greco-Roman wrestling to take part in the annual tournaments and then you were pulled out of the team for the lack of necessary skills, contrary to the fact that you were the best in your weight and class." Then he took a pause and looked at his brother who was sitting across the dining table with his customary pose of cupping the chin in his right hand and resting it on the table in a sort of leaning forward manner. Seeing no reaction on Francis' visage and his eyes in a fixed point lock, he hesitated to continue the discourse.
Suddenly, Francis came out of his stupor like stance and said: "Go on, I recall that incidence, I was in my tenth grade then, but what of it? What that has to do with what I asked you?"
There was sharpness in his tone as if he was anticipating the words which would sound like it was a disgrace to be pulled out of the team for the reasons he knew very well, were related to his sexuality and not the lack of skills or poor performances.
Pascu wished he had not brought up that but there was no dodging or backing out of that discussion and he decided to put his cards on the table and let his brother know that his mother was briefed by the family Priest and school team's coach.
"It was Father De Melo's opinion that the tendency obviously seen in you to remain clinging onto the other boys' bodies, may grow out of hand and lead to the ways prohibited by the God and only remedy to cleanse it out of one's mind was to put the person in the service of the Lord God and to that, his suggestion was to put you through the training for the exalted and admired position of a layman leading to the full priesthood. You wouldn't be of any use to any woman in the present status he had pointed out and to avoid the gossips and disgrace to her name, she agreed to make a Priest out of you, even though she was hoping to see your fair children with blue eyes in the future."
There was a pin drop silence in the room and Francis was frozen in his seat with his head dropped on his chest. A large clock in the corner was breaking the stillness of the ambiance with its tick, tack, sound. Pascal sat there observing his would be patient's face for any sign of distress, anger or expression that could give away an indication of an approaching gale. What happened then surprised him.
Slowly, Francis raised his head, stood up, looked at his brother's face and said in a calm and well controlled voice:
"Pour me a double of that fine brandy Pascu. I feel like celebrating. Now that you know who I am, I feel free and a big weight is lifted off my chest. Thanks for telling me. I wished I was told this before when I came out of the seminary; it would have saved me from the burden of Hippocratic Oath and the hypocrisy that goes with it. I suppose your wife and my siblings also know about this, but then, frankly it doesn't matter. It has made decision making about my life, easy now. I see my path clearly, without any qualms about the Chasing of the Wind."
Pascu was calm and professional and yet he couldn't suppress his emotions and tears rolled down his cheeks. Slowly he got up from his seat and walked towards his brother with opened arms. He embraced him tight and cried softly on brother's chest. They remained in that position for some time and it was Francis who spoke first:
"Aren't you getting me that drink?" I think we have lot to catch up tomorrow, isn't it?"
They toasted each others health, gulped the drink and retired for the night.